Burnt Wings
by Kamaevis
Summary: Dean never thought that seeing Castiel's wings would hurt this much. Destiel.


Dean halted just outside the motel room, his hand hovering over the doorknob in an unusual hesitance.

Something was wrong.

He couldn't tell you what if you asked, but something told him not to go in. Something kept his hand just a hairsbreadth away from the knob.

He wasn't sure how long he stood there, just staring at the door like it was some foreign object, but he finally shook himself from his stupor, chastised himself for being such a slave to instinct, and opened the stupid door.

It didn't take him long to figure out why his body had stopped him.

The motel room was in ruins, the lights shattered and snapping with electricity, the walls crumbling, the mattresses flung across the room from their splintered frames. And in the center of it all, a figure was sprawled across the floor, smeared with blood. Dean saw the trench coat first, that stupid, familiar trench coat that he'd pulled from that lake, the one that had been a link to his angel when his angel had been beyond his reach.

His chest tightened, and Cas's name was halfway to his lips when he noticed something else. Burnt into the ground on either side of the prone body were wings, large and black and everything that Castiel shouldn't be.

Dean stumbled forward, his eyes painfully wide, his lips parted. This couldn't…not Cas. Not _Cas._

His knees hit the floor before Dean registered that he was falling. Trembling hands reached out to clutch Castiel's shoulder, to wrench him back and turn him over and wait for his lips to quirk in his stupid little smile and for him to say, "Hello, Dean," in his stupid, _stupid_ voice and…

But he didn't smile. His lips were parted just slightly and his eyes were wide and too blue and unseeing. There was nothing on his face. It was blank, like it always was, but not in the right way. It wasn't a calculated blankness that carefully hid curiosity and fury and the other emotions that always toiled behind his eyes. It was just empty.

Dean didn't release Cas's coat. He clung to it, staring, just staring because this couldn't be real. It was a dream. It was a dream or he was back in Hell and being tortured because, god, please, it couldn't be true. Anything was better than this. Anything.

"Cas," He said, and his voice was raw and ragged and so, so foreign. He gripped the coat tighter, wrenching the limp body towards him.

_"__Cas," _he repeated, desperate for an answer. "Cas, please you gotta wake up, man. You gotta get up. We've got a world to save, remember?"

But Cas didn't move, and something broke inside Dean. He expected numbness, that overwhelming nothing that had taken him after dad and after Hell and after Sam. Because he could deal with the numbness. But this___hurt. _Everything. A pain so pure and unadulterated and raw tore through him. It ripped a hole in his chest and left him gasping.

He couldn't go on without Cas. There was no way. Cas, who had always believed in him, who had dragged him from eternal damnation and who had offered him everything, expecting nothing in return. Cas, who had been Dean's rock when Sam had faltered, who had loved Dean so thoroughly that he chose to damn himself rather than tear Dean away from Lisa. Cas had been the one person that Dean could count on, the one person that Dean could wholly and truly love because no matter how broken and decimated they were, they could put each other back together.

And now he was gone.

An agonized noise rose from Dean's chest as he sagged against Cas's body. He clutched the angel closer, sobs wracking his body because everything hurt and he couldn't do this. Not again. He couldn't lose this, too.

The prayers came unbidden to his lips, and he gasped them out. God, how could you do this to me? God, bring him back, bring him back again, like you always do. God, when will it be enough, when will I be broken enough for you?

And he kept praying and praying until a warm hand was on his shoulder and a familiar voice was calling his name.

Sam tried to pull him away, but Dean clung to Cas like a child clung to his toys. He couldn't let him go, not like this, not ever, please, god, not him. But Sam was insistent and Dean had to release Cas as Sam dragged him away. Cas's body fell limp and unmoving on the floor.

___Dead, oh god, oh god, he's dead._

Then there were fingers in his hair and gripping him around the middle and he was pressed into a warm chest and for once, he wasn't strong for Sammy. He couldn't be, not now, maybe not ever again. He sobbed against his baby brother, begging to know why, begging for a reason, for any sort of reason. Sam just rocked and whispered his name and comforted him even as tears ran down his own cheeks.

And Sammy was here, Sammy was alive, but Dean was so painfully alone.


End file.
